Behind Our Tradition

Reflection on Today's Readings, Wednesday, 21st Week in Ordinary Time Year II, 26th August, 2020
Texts: 2Thes. 3:6-10.16-18; Ps. 128:1-2.4-5; Matt. 23:27-32
Behind our tradition is sacrifice; many people sacrificed their rights to establish the tradition before us today. Some sacrificed their time and energy. Some even sacrificed their lives. They did this to purchase for us life that is better. St. Paul, in today's first reading, tells us that he sacrificed his right to establish the tradition of hard work. He puts it thus: "We were not idle  when we were with you, we did not eat any one's bread without paying, but with toil and labour we worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you. It was not because we have not that right, but to give you in our conduct an example to imitate".
We may now ask ourselves: what are we sacrificing for peace, justice, human rights, etc. St. Paul sacrificed his right to impress in the minds of Thessalonians the need for hard work.
If we know what is behind tradition, we will be attached to it.
We have to appreciate the tradition of our forefathers in faith and live in accord with it. They left behind tradition enlivened with the words of God. For the virtue of work, the psalmist says, "By the labour of your hands you shall eat. You will be blessed and prosper. Indeed thus shall be blessed the man who fears the Lord".
The gospel reading speaks of how we pay lip service to tradition, how we honour the heroes of our tradition, but by our ways of life we show the opposite. Jesus Christ condemns such attitude and calls it hypocrisy. He says, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, saying, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets'. Thus you witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets". The best way to honour the heroes of our faith is to keep their tradition alive in deeds and words; their labour must not be in vain.

May God help us to keep alive in our conducts the tradition of our fathers in faith. Amen.

Fr. Andrew Olowomuke